Pour Une Âme Souveraine: A Dedication to Nina Simone (CD)

Meshell Ndegeocello

Amoeba Review

Monalisa, Hollywood 03/27/2013

If you love Nina, Meshell, or both, then you already know! Features guest vocals by Cody Chesnutt, Lizz Wright, Sinead O’Connor, and Tracy Wannomae.

10/09/2012

If there's anyone who can truly throw down a credible tribute to an artist as unique, heavy and soulful as Nina Simone, it's this lady, who's a legend of her own as a bass wizard and songstress. Since her death in 2003, there have been plenty of "appropriations" of Simone, for everything from house remixes to internet ads. But Ndgeocello approaches this music from a place of kinship -- she's as much a furious, misunderstood outsider possessed by music, as was Nina herself. With guest vocalists from Toshi Reagon to Sinead O'Connor to the soulful man of mystery Cody Chesnutt, she reinterprets songs from the canon with intelligence, sympathy and not a little ambiguity -- "Feeling Good," "House of the Rising Sun" and "Don't Take All Night" to name a few. Joy, darkness and tough love, not a bad recipe for a good song.